Dying Light 2 Stay Human

The sequel to Dying Light features a new protagonist, characters, and setting, along with a new storyline that expands the game universe. The formula of "zombies, parkour, and survival" that made the original famous has been revamped and many new mechanics have been added.

The prolonged development left Stay Human as a game of the PS4/XOne generation: primitive surface geometry, outdated particle and lighting systems, a lack of variety among plant, zombie, character, and enemy models, and overall "blurry" graphics.

The world experienced a catastrophe that engulfed Harran and its surroundings, and the developed vaccine halted the threat of new zombie outbreaks. However, secret experiments by scientists and the military on the Harran virus continued, and a new strain escaped from another laboratory, quickly spreading across the planet and causing the collapse of human civilization.

While the world plunged into darkness and chaos, order was maintained in Villedor — a fictional city somewhere in Europe. Surrounded by an impenetrable wall due to its many laboratories, the city was spared from the outside outbreak. But the happiness was short-lived. A prototype vaccine developed by local scientists was dispersed inside the city, turning many residents into zombies and killing the vegetation.

The events of Stay Human begin 20 years after the Harran outbreak and 10 years after the fall of Villedor. By this time, there is no place left on the planet untouched by the ill-fated virus. The few survivors huddle in fortified settlements scattered hundreds of kilometers apart. Brave souls, pilgrims, travel alone between them, carrying out tasks and delivering packages. The main character, Aiden Caldwell, is one of them, arriving in Villedor in search of his sister.

The open seamless world of Stay Human is twice the size of Harran and entirely urban, dotted with cathedrals, hospitals, radio towers, skyscrapers, factories, and other points of interest, interconnected by a network of roads, highways, and subways. Several levels of "verticality" and a significant portion of accessible buildings add even more volume.

Everything is just beginning to fall into decay, allowing you to explore the city's architectural designs, run along the facades and rooftops of houses, and walk through the streets. Villedor is divided into two vast areas reflecting their essence: the Old Town with 18th-19th century courtyard wells and Central Loop with modern office and residential buildings. Nature is reclaiming the city's rooftops with vegetation, avoiding the poisoned surface.

The designers have crafted Villedor to ensure smooth movement and parkour: buildings stand "side by side," and ladders, ropes, cables, bars, trampolines, and hook points are placed for crossing empty spaces, with paragliders and air ramps unlocking over time. It's a great arena for free-running.

At the start of the game, three major factions are fighting for control of the city: the renegade marauders "Renegades," the freedom-loving hippies "Survivors," and the heavily-armed authoritarian "Peacekeepers." Zombies flood the city but are more active at night, hiding in dungeons and lower floors during the day.

Despite the efforts and promises of Techland, the plot of Dying Light 2 is inferior to the first part, lacks narrative logic, coherence of story and gameplay, and is full of inconsistencies and contradictions. A massive script and thousands of voiced dialogues without a plan turned out to be a set of quests and events. Only a small part of them will captivate you with the narrative and evoke emotions.

There are many characters, but all are random fellow travelers: they will talk about themselves, about life, about plans for the future and disappear after completing the quest. Only the most charismatic friends with whom Aiden will spend a lot of time chatting heart-to-heart will be remembered. The antagonist is a completely stereotypical idiot with a bunch of contradictions; the fight against him in search of his sister ends in Santa Barbara.

The dialogue system does not reveal its potential, offering a la Fallout 4 a couple of remarks and questions. The promised choice is illusory - everything will either return to the rails or end in nothing. The ending, the state of the world and the fate of the characters will be determined by five key decisions.

The gang war for Villedor, where Aiden gets involved at the beginning, remains somewhere behind the scenes. The factions are stereotypical, lacking motivation and global goals; the script will immediately explain who is good and who is bad. Communication with them comes down to transferring important objects, which the hero repairs, opening the city and completing side quests.

The atmosphere itself has changed. The survivors got used to the risk of becoming zombies at the moment and realized that after the apocalypse, life goes on. Sitting around a campfire with a guitar, bars and drinks, simple joys of life and a warm color palette in Stay Human replaced the despair, fear and disaster before our eyes from Dying Light.

The gameplay of Stay Human is built with an eye on an MMORPG, adapted for solo play. Everything that is somehow involved in the gameplay has received levels, ranks or degrees of quality, auto-leveling rules the balance, and possible battles are limited by the development of the hero (it is impossible to defeat an enemy of a higher rank).

Leveling up the protagonist is divided into two branches - the combat system and parkour, experience is accumulated during the corresponding activities. But you can’t develop the required skill without developing stamina and health. As a result, the gameplay is revealed from the second half of the game, and the combat, where the main actions are available immediately, is long superior to parkour, which requires perksfor smoothness and coherence .

There is a lot of equipment. Weapons, armor, equipment, attachments, consumables and tools - all one way or another contain dozens of their components (or drawings for them), and they also need to be upgraded (up to 9 times!). Items and armor on the hero have passive stats that hint at a particular build.

In search of high-quality resources and equipment, you will have to vacuum every centimeter. All collected resources go into the bottomless inventory, and from there to craft useful items, but only according to recipes. They can be bought from merchants, found in the open world, and the most valuable ones can be obtained for completing story and additional quests.

Stay Human combat is a classic slasher movie. No firearms, just shred, chop, pound, thresh and break, although for variety you can shoot with a bow and crossbow, throw Molotovs and lay mines. The arsenal is huge and as you get more and more powerful options, weapons can be enhanced with elemental damage and several mods installed. Старые приемы боя и новые, вроде блокирования или парирования ударов, теперь собираются в комбо и позволяют контрить сразу всю толпу врагов.

Паркур изменили ближе к реализму. У героя появился вес, у действий — инерция, у движения — запас выносливости, а все сверхспособности — вроде двойных прыжков, бега по стенам, зависания в воздухе — объясняются лором. Есть и паркурные головоломки — нужно бежать в определенном темпе и применять подходящие способности.

Боевка и паркур во фриплее нужны постоянно. Днем в город высыпают враги-люди, тоже умеющие в ближний бой, блокирование, парирование и способные преследовать игрока по крышам. Стычки с ними заставят попотеть. Ночью из всех щелей лезут мертвецы, сражения с которыми стали сложнее и разнообразнее, особенно за счет новых видов зомби. Появились уровни зомби-преследования а-ля GTA 5 и уже на третьем игра выведет всех самых опасных тварей.

Активностей в Dying Light 2 пруд пруди: основные и второстепенные квесты, дополнительные задания, миссии на фарм, ночные забеги на прокачку, испытания и многое другое. Функционально это хорошо знакомые захват вышек, зачистки аванпостов, найди-принеси, поймай-убей, собери-перенеси, почини электрику, связь, водопровод или просто поговори с NPC. Карта усеяна десятками пустых и репетативных квестов, на фоне которых задания с короткими историями на вес золота.

Скрасить прохождение призван кооператив на четырех человек. Сюжет идет в актив хосту, а друзья лишь наблюдают. Но в геймплее всё проходится совместно, быстрее и интенсивнее, хотя сложность и растет пропорционально числу игроков. Все найденные предметы и прогресс считаются отдельно и сохраняются в зачет каждому.